About Me

Thursday, July 8, 2010

File Under 'Crazy'

Summer has officially arrived here on the East Coast. The Fourth of July has come and gone, and the temperatures have skyrocketed into the bazillions of degrees. My thighs are none too happy about this, and my feet are pissed off, too. I am loath to admit this isn't really pregnancy-related, just my body's reaction to living in an oven. I swore I wouldn't complain about the sunshine and heat this summer, way back when we were freezing in the deepest, darkest pits of despair-laden winter.

But shit, man. It's hot. And I am crabby.

I can't place all the blame on the heat, though. I've got a lot going on and I'm trying to keep it together. A dear cousin is getting married out of town this weekend. I'm travelling alone for the first time since E was born--hell, since way before he was born--but that means packing and planning and making sure things go well here while I'm away. And not stressing out about, oh, I don't know, a million possible catastrophes I'd rather not say aloud that could happen.

And then there's the sonogram I have scheduled for tomorrow. It's the big, mid-way, genetic-anomaly one. The one parents are usually excited for, the "Hey-it's-a-boy-or-girl" one. Yeah. That one. Well, we already know he's a boy, so there's that. But this time I feel like all bets are off. The last 2 times we went through this, my only major concern was that the tech didn't tell us the gender. "We don't want to know!" C and I would happily shout, and "tell us when to look away!"

Oh, the bliss of naivete.

This time, I am stressed. There are, I guess, only two options: the baby is OK, or the baby is NOT OK. And then, if the baby is OK, it's: the baby will live, or the baby will die. What more is there? I don't think I want to know. But just thinking about the WHAT IF THE BABY IS NOT OK makes me want to throw up, throw things, lay down and die.

But of course, I don't have that option. I have a life to live. I have a son to care for, a husband to care for. I don't have the luxury of sitting around obsessing--which is a good thing, I guess. But the stress of the worry manifests itself everywhere else. I am one hot mess.

And also this: while yes, I can feel this little guy moving, I can't feel him all the time. I can't feel him, for example, while I'm walking, if he's indeed up at all. So there comes a point in every day where the kernel of panic pops into a full-blown terror. I need to eat something, sit down, and wait for him to move. But, most often again, I cant. There's dishes to wash or dinner to make or a 2 year old to chase or placate with stickers or find something for on TV. So while I'm trying to navigate my life, my head is spinning and my brain is frying and I'm trying to hold it all together.

I need to get through tomorrow intact. And I need it to be way less hot. I am growling.

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And then there's this in crazy: every time I see a FB update that "Blahbiddyblah is pregnant!" or "Susie Soandso is going to be a big sister!" or some other such excitement, I feel dread. Not for them, but for me. As though the good baby-making mojo out there somehow counteracts things going well for us. As though there's a finite number of babies waiting to be born alive, and each new one on the scene lessens the chances of ours making it.

2 comments:

Oh, honey. This must be so hard. I'm not even pregnant again yet and I can't think about the anatomy scan without dry heaves. You're not crazy - I can't handle facebook at all. I erased my profile months ago. I try not to find out if someone around me is pregnant. I am convinced that if someone close to me gets pregnant that I won't, because they got the baby meant for me. So I know crazy. Deep breaths. I'll keep holding your hand over the ether while you wait.

Oh I get this. I really do. I felt like each new baby born alive meant mine was less likely to make it. I also felt I had a 50/50 chance that the baby would live or die, even though I knew the odds were far more favourable than that. I feel sick to the stomach just thinking about my ultrasounds with Angus, and I had them once every four weeks from 20 weeks. Even though they said he was fine at 20 weeks, I still kept waiting for something to show up. I think I annoyed the hell out of the ultrasound technicians "is that ok, is that normal, is that good, what does that mean" yada yada yada. As for FB, ugh. I too deleted my profile after Hope died. Couldn't bear it. I have just been back on for the last six months or so, and it still makes me feel a bit ill. It is all so damn fake.Thinking of you before the big scan.xo